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28 Mar 2003 : Column 629—continued
Sir Paul Beresford: I note the hon. Lady's thoughtful point about the fact that some people are unable to maintain their hedges because of their age or financial position. What would happen if the local authority decided that the hedge should come down to 2 m, but the finances of the lady or old gentleman who owned it would not stretch to taking it down to that level and maintaining it? Who would pay and what would be the arrangements?
Mrs. Brooke: My reason for alluding to such cases is that those matters must be discussed in Committee. That is the right place to consider such detailed concerns.
To return to my point on local authority resources, funding the appeal process would be expensive and there would be a lot of appeals until the backlog of cases had been dealt with, so I urge the Minister to consider the matter. The Bill is about quality of life. One neighbour's perfectly reasonable desire for privacy may result in misery for occupants of adjoining properties, so we need a mediation process backed by statute to resolve such conflicts.
1.57 pm
Mr. Christopher Chope (Christchurch): It is a pleasure to follow my Dorset neighbour, the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Mrs. Brooke), although I am disappointed that she did not pick up on the regulatory impact assessment, which answers the question of who will pay. The answer is that the local authorities will pay.
Mr. Chope: And the taxpayer will pay. The regulatory impact assessment says that it would be possible for local authorities to raise some revenue from imposing charges for access to the regulatory regime and that the rest of the money would be distributed through the revenue support grant system if there was a shortfall. As the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole knows, that would not be much use in Dorset, because our local authorities are on the floor, and the people likewise.
Mrs. Brooke: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Chope: In a moment. If the Government say that they would add money to the revenue support grant,
that does not mean any real additional money due to the impact of the floors and ceilings regime that they have introduced. East Dorset district council, part of whose area is in my constituency, does not receive any revenue support grant, so if the Government say that the burden of the measure would be met by money distributed from the centre through that grant, they are doing nothing at all to help my hard-pressed council tax payers and constituents. I shall now give way to the hon. Lady, if she wants to get in.
Mr. Chope: Okay. I am sorry that I have embarrassed the hon. Lady about that.
Sir Paul Beresford: To follow up my hon. Friend's point, we are dealing not with structures that are built, but with plants that grow. The Bill's promoter explained that with the dramatic example of his favourite plant, the leylandii. The payment problem would be annual, if not twice-yearly, if a hedge had to be kept in shape and trimmed.
Mr. Chope: My hon. Friend is right.
I was disappointed by the speech of the hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Pound) because although he was tremendously charming—he could have charmed the birds from the trees or from the leylandii—he was a little flippant. These are serious issues and if the Bill is brought forward in the form it is in at the moment many of our constituents will have much cause for complaint.
It is not just me expressing concerns about the Bill. A letter to me from a constituent states:
- "Ref: Conifers and tall hedges.
When a tall hedge has been established for many years is it threatened with a serious reduction in size just because a neighbour doesn't like it, even if it has been at that height before the present neighbour moved in?
What happens if the hedge borders several properties and not everyone wants the hedge cut down?
Is this legislation to apply to hedges that are not right on the boundary line?
If a new dwelling is built next to a hedge can the new occupants insist on the hedge being cut down?
These are just a few of the questions that this proposal raises.
Many people feel that their gardens are under threat with the look and privacy of their gardens being subjected to bureaucracy at its worst, not to mention the loss of habitat for birds etc.
Media attention in the last few years has led to a form of 'conifer rage' where neighbours who have lived quite contentedly next to tall hedges for years have suddenly become quite aggressive to the hedge owners.
It appears to me that the legislation as outlined in Gardeners World is not just full of pitfalls and blown out of all proportion, but is totally unworkable and likely to cause thousands of hedge owners much concern. I therefore hope that for concerned clients, family, and friends you will do all in your power to oppose this legislation."
I have looked at the April 2003 edition of another magazine, Garden Answers. It has a good play on words in the headline, "Bill to fix hedge rows". On the same page, another headline says, "Nextdoor nightmare". The article states:
- "Over 50 per cent of home owners have a gripe about their neighbours, according to a new survey by the Norwich Union. Respondents revealed their main sources of discontent included neighbours who kept an untidy garden".
It is not sensible for neighbours to fall out with each other and to try to force changes when those could be secured through amicable agreement. The hon. Member for Wirral, South (Mr. Chapman) said that he was not aware of any instance where it had been possible to mediate in such a hedge dispute. Only last month, as a result of my efforts at mediation, a conifer hedge was cut down by a neighbour, so that the person who complained to me and to him could be relieved of that oppressive hedge. Having cut down his hedges, the neighbour has asked why the person next door has done nothing about her pine trees. If we become too adversarial, it will be tit for tat. He will go off to complain to the local authority and costs will be incurred.
The hon. Member for Ealing, North said that it would be possible for the local authority to refuse vexatious complaints. That is true but, as the Bill stands, there would still be the right of appeal against such a refusal, with all that that involves. Unlike the situation in the High Court—where if a judge says that someone is a vexatious litigant, he is prevented from making any such complaints again without the leave of the court—there could still be vexatious people who want to take it out on their neighbours. As we have heard, if that dispute were generated at a time when a person was trying to sell a house, it would have to be declared to potential purchasers. The scope for neighbours to fall out with each other will not be restricted much by the Bill.
I was encouraged when the hon. Gentleman said that there would be objective tests. He will recall that when I expressed reservations about the previous Bill on the subject, it was not because I did not think that there should be legislation in this field. I wanted to ensure that the legislation was clear and unambiguous, and involved objective tests. I was keen that we awaited the outcome of the report organised by the Department of the Environment, as it then was, which looked at the best way to bring in some objective tests.
The Building Research Establishment produced a report, the contents of which have been useful in my constituency work in giving people an idea as to whether or not their hedge would result in an unacceptable or unreasonable loss of light for their neighbours. Comparing this Bill with the previous Bill—about which I had reservations—I see that the present Bill is going
even wider. Clause 4, about complaints procedures, no longer includes this reference in clause 4(4) of the previous Bill:
- "The authority must, when acting under subsection (3), take into consideration all matters appearing to them to be relevant, including in particular . . . the extent to which the high hedge in question is capable of affording (or, if reduced in height, would still be capable of affording) privacy to an occupier of the neighbouring land . . . the extent to which that hedge contributes (or, if reduced in height, would still contribute) to the amenity of the neighbourhood, and . . . any legal obligation (whether imposed by or under any enactment or otherwise) relating to that hedge."
- "two or more adjacent evergreens"
- "so much of a barrier to light or access as".
Many comments were made—albeit late, at Report stage—during the passage of the previous Bill. The promoter of that Bill could have argued that that stage was too late to take on board many of the concerns expressed. However, the promoter of this Bill—the hon. Member for Ealing, North—knows that whether his Bill gets a Second Reading today is hanging by a whisker because of the shortage of time. However, if it does get a Second Reading, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will accept that that has happened only because of the indulgence of hon. Members who have severe and serious reservations about it and wish the Bill to be substantially altered in Committee.
Last week, we heard from a different Minister—the Minister for Rural Affairs and Urban Quality of Life. I have never quite understood what happened to the Minister for rural quality of life. Anyway, that Minister expressed severe reservations about the Equine Welfare (Ragwort Control) Bill. He said:
- "As drafted, the Bill would place significant new burdens on local authorities".
- "Local authorities, as one or two hon. Members have acknowledged, have many competing bids for funding—for example, there is the need to provide social care and more money for education."
- "the Government cannot add to the financial burden falling on those bodies by giving them additional responsibilities."—[Official Report, 21 March 2003; Vol. 401, c. 1247.]
The hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) said that he thinks that the estimate of the total costs is an underestimate and that there may be as many as 17,000 cases as opposed to 10,000 cases.
I commend to the House the full regulatory impact assessment. It estimates that the cost of a council officer's time to investigate such complaints is, on average, £35 to £40 an hour, and that each complaint may take as long as eight hours to investigate. The assessment goes on to say that there might be 10,000 cases and an estimated 2,000 appeals over three years. That would lead to substantial costs. However, the assessment does not think that costs to the court service will be significant, because it is not thought that the criminal sanctions in the Bill will be used. That leads to an obvious question: why have criminal sanctions in the Bill? Why criminalise neighbours as the Bill proposes to do, when we do not criminalise them for other antisocial things that they do to each other? We should put the emphasis on mediation.
The hon. Member for Ealing, North referred—tongue in cheek, perhaps—to naturists. What he said would be fine if it were not to be considered alongside the impact of clause 70 of the Sexual Offences Bill. Up to now, if a naturist sat in his garden and the neighbours wanted to look at him or her, that has not been a criminal offence. However, under clause 70 of the Sexual Offences Bill, a person could be committing an offence just by lying nude in his or her garden. Many naturists choose to have highish hedges around their gardens to protect themselves. This Bill could require those hedges to be cut down, and the neighbours could then get the ultimate reward of being able to ask the police to prosecute the person in the garden for sunbathing in the nude. The neighbours would now able to see the naturist because they had required the hedge to be cut down. That is an issue that needs to be addressed, and perhaps anyone who had a high hedge could have as a defence the protection of their naturism.
I do not think that the libertarian arguments are overwhelming, but they must be taken into account. It is the House's responsibility to ensure that the Bill does not merely appease and appeal to a single-issue pressure group. If it is to change the law, it should do so objectively in a way that can be supported by all members of society.
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